


throw me to the wolves

by Sunnystar



Series: stars in your lupine eyes (Remus Lupin's guide to fucking shit up) [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Assault, Betrayal, Character Death, Character(s) of Color, Dark, Dark Remus Lupin, F/F, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, M/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Mental Health Issues, Multi, Murder, Original Character(s), Other, References to Depression, Reincarnation, Remus Lupin Needs a Hug, Self-Insert, Terminal Illnesses, Welsh Character, Welsh Remus Lupin, Werewolf Remus Lupin, Wizarding Culture (Harry Potter), Wizarding Wars (Harry Potter), Wizarding World (Harry Potter), Young Remus Lupin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:21:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25228234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunnystar/pseuds/Sunnystar
Summary: I wake up in Remus Lupin’s body after Fenrir Greyback’s attack.It doesn’t get much better from then on.[SI/OC]
Relationships: Hope Lupin & Remus Lupin, Hope Lupin/Lyall Lupin, James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Lily Evans Potter & Severus Snape, Marlene McKinnon/Dorcas Meadowes, Remus Lupin & Lily Evans Potter, Remus Lupin & Severus Snape, Sirius Black & Remus Lupin & Peter Pettigrew & James Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: stars in your lupine eyes (Remus Lupin's guide to fucking shit up) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2095629
Comments: 82
Kudos: 250
Collections: Compelling Self-Inserts with actual character development and interesting effects on cannon., Good shit right here (#Shipping is not the main concern here), Harry Potter, If there's none I'LL write the world building, In Angst We Trust, Marauders Era, Remus and friends, Second Wizarding War & Hogwarts Era, Self Inserts from Our World, Self-Inserts and Original Characters





	1. acquainted with the night

**Author's Note:**

> this is honestly so, so self indulgent, but hey, I love Remus and I want to suffer

> ** I have been one acquainted with the night. **
> 
> ** I have walked out in rain—and back in rain. **
> 
> ** I have outwalked the furthest city light. **
> 
> _ Robert Frost _

There’s something visceral and unsettling about seeing your innards. My intestines were not the color I expected them to be.

  
Oh my god. _Oh my god!_

~~_(wrongwrongwrongwrong)_ ~~

~~_(the moon is wrong and my bones hurt)_ ~~

~~_(deaddeaddeaddeaddead-)_ ~~

  
But then again, neither were the torn muscles at my shoulder. There were tears on my face, stinging in the cold night air, and I screamed, still hoping to be found.

I saw blue lights right as I passed out, a deep voice calling out.

  
“-emus!” I didn’t know who that was, but I was grateful that someone was there, and I fell unconscious, finally.

ᵂʰʸ ᵈᵒᵉˢ ᵈᵉᵃᵗʰ ʰᵘʳᵗ ˢᵒ ᵐᵘᶜʰ?

* * *

  
It was the weekly friend dinner, the unofficial occasion where all of my cheap friends would gather in my apartment and beg food from me before passing out on my living room floor. 

  
I was making pav bhaji, because I could buy the bread from the stores and the gravy/dip was easy to make in large quantities when everyone began to hustle in with their usual gifts, excuses, and copious amounts of blankets and pillows. 

  
Maya, as per usual, tried to sneak in beer, but we’d been playing this game for so long that it was easy to shove the beer into a hidden alcove. She threw a stuffed animal at me when she realised her alcohol was again, gone, but she knew I’d return it come morning.

  
I don’t like drinking. There’s not a whole lot to say about it, because I’d never chastised any of my friends against it, but this was my home and thus bound my rules. Cleaning up vomit and bile wasn’t pleasant, after all, and I’d had persistent nightmares about any of my friends drunk driving, so this was my effort to prevent that.

  
As Sophie had once bemoaned, I was certainly the mom friend. But I honestly didn’t mind, because I had a good fifteen people ready to fight for my honor at any given moment. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you, and all that.

  
Drew slipped into the kitchen like a particularly tall wraith, wrapping his arms around me. I relaxed into his hold as I stirred the bhaji, gently adding onion into the mixture.

  
Many had asked if Drew and I were dating, and we weren’t, but our friendship always had that tinge of ‘more’, and we were comfortable with each other in ways that superseded everyone else. With Drew, it felt like my bare-bones could be revealed, and it would sound excessively florid, except whenever these gatherings happened, he always fell asleep curled around me, smiling at me.

  
It was nice. We fit together in comfortable ways.

  
The doorbell rang again and Drew tightened his arms around me before letting go. He got out the porcelain plates and told everyone to wash their hands, among grumbles and sardonic cries of Yes father dearest. I snorted, loudly, startling Aileen, who’d been water ‘her’ plants on the windowsill. I gave her a cheeky smile before turning back to the pot.

  
Aileen and I had been friends since third grade, but we’d fallen out because of ‘she-who-shall-not-be-named’. We’d reconciled after one of my other friends, Grace, began dating Aileen in highschool.

  
Aileen, who’d gone to the same stuffy, conservative, religious school that I’d gone too. I would’ve been more ‘concerned’ had I myself not dated several girls.

  
_The one end result of religious schools,_ I found myself musing, _was that the students either adhered to the principals rigidly or rebelled at every turn._

  
I turned off the stove, stirring the bhaji once more as I began to clean up. The cutting board and knives went in the sink to be washed by whoever I bullied into doing my chores.

  
I placed the pot on the cheap kitchen table next to the stack of plates. 

  
“Dinner is served,” I said with glee. I made sure everyone got their fill before piling up my own plate with bread and drip. I took a seat on the living room floor next to Drew and Aasia. The girl was tucking stray bits of hair back into her hijab, and I tucked in the strands she’d missed.

  
The joy of the headscarf, I thought sardonically to myself, looking my bedroom’s open doorway. There hung a lovely pink hijab that my grandmother sent from India.

  
I hadn’t worn it, but I hadn’t given it away either, so there’s that. 

  
I turned my thoughts back to the conversations around me. “So, what are we watching?” Aasia and Drew turned to each other.

  
“The Princess Bride,” they said in eerie sync, before glaring at each other. My best friend and…pseudo boyfriend did not get along. At all. But they were similar in some important ways, which made it even more hilarious.

  
“Oh ho?” I sung, just to be an ass. Aasia glared at me while Drew smiled indulgently over the top go my head. I could feel it, and I wasn’t even facing him.

  
I grabbed a stray blanket and covered myself and Drew, leaning back a little. It was nice, and I dug into my dinner.

  
The rest of the night was pleasant as my friends either left or passed out on the floor. I was much too small to carry any of them to my bed, but I managed to shove pillows under their heads and blankets over their prone bodies.

  
Drew had fallen asleep next to Aasia, and I placed a pillow between them. Aasia wouldn’t like being touched by a man, even if it was unintentional, and I could prevent some hurt feelings ahead of time. 

  
I only had the kitchen light on, and the house was covered in a warm, golden glow, and I couldn’t help but smile.

  
It taken quite a while to get here, I thought to myself. Happily ever after and all that. 

  
I looked at the overflowing trash and sighed. Leaving it out would be like inviting the cockroaches to come feast. I shoved the trash further into the bag, picking the bits of napkins. 

  
It wasn’t too late, I told myself. Tomorrow was the trash day, so maybe I could just go throw the bag away now. It’d make my life easier.

  
I left my phone on the counter with a reminder to call my father soon. I looked at my near-empty pill bottle and set another reminder to call the pharmacy.

  
I contemplated kissing Maya on the forehead as she slept. Her face was just amazingly adorable, but I shook my head. No. I’d be back soon, and I could kiss whomever I wanted on the forehead.

  
I hoisted the trash up and unlocked the door. I locked it once more from the outside, not feeling entirely comfortable leaving my sleeping friends _defenseless._

  
I didn’t have my wallet with me. 

  
_Maybe that was my mistake._

The dumpster was a bit far from my flat, but I knew the way. I hefted the bag over my arms and threw it in. I turned around, about to step back into the open, when I saw a dark figure. I only had a second to process it before I was shoved up against the grimy alley wall.

  
My heartbeat pounded in my ears as I gasped over the hand covering my mouth. My breathing was heavy, the hand around my throat tightening.

  
I couldn’t see who it was, but it was a man, much bigger than I. I was a resounding 5 feet, 116 pounds and I couldn’t breathe.

  
“Darling, where’s your purse? Hand it over and I won’t kill you.” The voice purred and I closed my eyes.

  
“Don’t. Have it-” I gasped out in the brief respite. The hand around my throat tightened again, and my mouth tasted like ash. My lips were salty from the tears.

  
The voice tutted. “Really? We’ll see about that.” I shook my head, because no, I didn’t have it, but I didn’t have a moment to beg him to stop. 

  
Something was shoved into my stomach, and it didn’t hurt at first, but the metallic edge grew cold in my stomach, and it burned and throbbed. I wailed as the person hummed in my ear.

_The fucker had stabbed me!_

  
“Let’s try again- where’s your purse?” At this point, I began to wonder if he even care about the purse. Surely, no one would protect their wallet at a time like this?

I thrashed in his arms, crying out as the knife was dragged up. Wasn’t adrenaline supposed to numb all of it? I screamed as the man began sawing into the bottom of my spine-

  
“Don’t have it please, _pleasepleaseplease_ stop-“ I gave out a garbled moan of excruciating pain. Please, please hear my screams, someone, _anyone-_

  
“Hmm?” Another slow cut upwards and I gagged on the blood rushing into my mouth.

  
I could feel the edges of my vision darken, thankfully. I’d always had low blood pressure, and I’d hated it, but now? Now I was grateful.

  
The black spots widened as my knees began weakening. I tilted forward and the man dropped me onto the ground.

  
“A pity. They usually last longer.” And then the world around me began to warp, dark bricks giving way to a pitch-black sky, wavering and spinning.

  
_Death was colorful,_ I thought, hysterically. 

ᵂʰʸ ᵈᵒᵉˢ ᵈᵉᵃᵗʰ ʰᵘʳᵗ ˢᵒ ᵐᵘᶜʰ?

_Death is colorful and I am dead, I am dead and I never-_

  
_I didn’t get the chance to-_

  
_I was dead and no one would know, not until-_

_ᵂʰʸ ᵈᵒᵉˢ ᵈᵉᵃᵗʰ ʰᵘʳᵗ ˢᵒ ᵐᵘᶜʰ?_

Bile and spit burned my tongue-

  
The moon, a full moon (and wasn’t that strange, I was certain it was a crescent) shone ominously in the sky, and I was on the ground (but it wasn’t paved, the dirt scraping under my fingernails) and the sense of _wrongwrongwrong_ didn’t go away as the wolf (a wolf? In the city? What-) pounced and I 

s̻͎c̡͉̪r̞͖̼e̢̪̟a̡͉̘m̡͔̪e̺͇͇d̡͍̘

  
i͔͍̼n͎͇̫ ̺̻͇

  
a̝̦̙g̺̪͜o͇̟̟n̡̻͜y͎͎̞

  
a͕͙͕s̠̠̙

  
it tore up my shoulder and my pale skin was drenched in blood as it’s huge maw stunk of meat and death and I gagged on my own tears-

  
and it’s eyes, the eyes were bottomless pits of darkness and I screamed as it howled at the moon, the evil, torturous moon that witnessed my death-

  
and the wolf bounded away-

  
~~(but I was killed by a man, not a wolf, wolves aren’t men-)~~

  
~~(the city didn’t have opens spaces, mulberry bushes, my skin-)~~

  
~~(I could see the muscles and tendons and my pale, pale skin-)~~

  
~~(I reflected the moon in my tiny, tiny, body but I wasn’t this small-~~

  
~~(my hips are wrong, my breasts are gone, my skin was never this soft-)~~

  
and I looked down at my spilling insides

  
and I thought, suddenly calm at the face of my ongoing suffering-

  
_There’s something visceral and unsettling about seeing your innards._


	2. hold thee on in courage of soul

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title in from the same poem down below, but these lines fit better :)

> **Who telleth a tale of unspeaking death?**   
>  **Who lifteth the veil of what is to come?**   
>  **Who painteth the shadows that are beneath**   
>  **The wide-winding caves of the peopled tomb?**   
>  **Or uniteth the hopes of what shall be**   
>  **With the fears and the love for that which we see?**
> 
> _Percy Bysshe Shelley_

_Drip._

_Drop._

_Drip._

_Drop._

The floors were covered in lush, red silk, with dazzling metal spires rising far above my eyes, settled in stone.

Blood pooled under my legs, and I realised that the silk was soaked in it.

_Sticky._

In front of me lays a wolf. I flinch back, still remembering the bloody, sharp-toothed wolf that had dismembered me, but this wolf is white and she not monstrous.

She is still and her eyes are wise and I tense up before sharply relaxing.

_And I don’t know._

I felt that I could trust her, and maybe that made the difference. Because I could tell she wasn’t just a mindless beast, but something more. 

I calmed myself, and took a moment to look around, observing the little details I had missed. I looked at what I was wearing.

Silver earrings that resembled dreamcatchers, chipped pink nail polish. Short hair, from years ago, above my ear, fluffy and inexplicably boyish. A blue leaf necklace and long green gauze over a white dress. Pale pink scars peeking out from my thighs, just above my kneecaps.

Anklets. Real silver, not aluminum. They were discoloured, just as they were in my past life. 

The perfect amalgamation of everything I was. Daughter, friend, beloved, American, Indian, atheist, Muslim, ambiguous, funny, depressed, hurting, happy, alive-

Identities are important, and we don’t put a lot of stock into them until we lose them, in death or growing up. Identities are transient but they’re also so rigid. We thrive within our molds, we make them our own.

And I was no longer myself.

I leaned forward and pressed my face into the wolf’s next, anticipating the smell of wet dog, instead only smelling something rich and herby.

“…'m not supposed to be here.” The wolf’s fur moved softly under my breath.

“Send me back?” To where I didn’t know. I was dead, wasn’t I? But I wasn’t supposed to be here, where ever I was.

Dead woman walking. I snorted.

“I’m in the wrong place-“

The wolf made this odd humming, growling noise, I let out a choked giggle, my tears matted her fur.

“Send me home?” I mumbled. “Please?”

“But where would you go?” Came the voice, echoing in the expanses of the room. I startled, but then pressed even closer into her fur. I wasn’t above suffocation by wolf.

“Back.” I said, blunt in a way that only the exhausted could be. The exhausted and the dead.

“I did not bring you here. The wolves do not tamper with time.” And I giggled, because I was talking to a wolf in my head about how I didn’t want to live in a world that wasn’t mine.

“But why am I here? I’m nothing extraordinary!” And that was true in every bone, I wasn’t extraordinary, hell, I strived to be the best ordinary person I could be. I was the normal amount of traumatised, and I had to clue what I was doing here.

“The fates have brought you here, and you are a wolf. That is how it is.” I shook my head.

“Fuck fate, I was dying in an alley because someone stabbed me. How does that correlate to…whatever this is? And who am I, right now?”

I was wearing someone else’s bones, small and fragile. If I had stolen their identity, I reserved the right to mourn them and my own stupid luck.

“You haven’t stolen anyone’s body.” The wolf did this sound, and I realised she was sighing. As if she was tired of this situation. Welcome to the club, wolfie. I am a hundred percent done with this bullshit.

“Remus Lupin has died. His soul has left for the Endless Beyond, and you stole nothing.” I felt my heart stutter.

Why was that name so familiar? I wracked my brain for a second as I approached a horror-filled conclusion.

Wait. Remus Lupin. Werewolf McWerewolf? Teddy’s father? Harry’s ineffectual uncle? Marauder? I-

“Hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn-“ My voice wavered up and down, like a dying whale or lemming, and could feel the amusement radiating from the wolf. I growled into her fur as I my wailing lowered in pitch til I was just whimpering.

“Werewolf McWerewolf,” I whimpered to her.

The wolf let me have my hysterics for a moment before snapped her jaw and I quieted.

“So I’m Remus now. And I’ve just been attacked by Greyback, which sets me up for a life of misery, poverty, and self-loathing.” I sighed.

“I actually, to a degree, think it would be better to kill me off. Remus complicates the plot.” The wolf tilted her head.

“Plot? You speak of fate’s machinations so casually.” I snorted.

“I refuse to believe J. K. Rowling accidentally tapped into divine wavelengths that inspired her story.” The wolf just looked confused, so I shook my head. “Let’s just say I have some idea of ‘my’ life, and how it will go. It’s not pretty.”

“You’re not allowed to die, cub. Kill yourself after you play your role, perhaps, but wolves do not commit suicide.” I almost laughed at this, because the original Remus might’ve not picked up his wand for that purpose, but it was a close thing. I can see self-harm a mile away, an avid purveyor of it myself in the past.

“You don’t understand, wolf-“

“Lupa.”

“Okay, you don’t understand Lupa, because we’re talking genocide. Murder. Remus’s bones rearranging themselves into a different form. Me being dangerous, and at times being used as a weapon. Never being influential enough to change a lot.”

“Will this world’s situation improve with your lack of existence?”

“No, but it won’t get any worse.” And this was probably true, Remus didn’t stop Severus from being bullied, didn’t get a choice in being used as a weapon, didn’t help Harry when he was under the Dursley’s thumb. Didn’t help Sirius when he was spiralling, took way too long to be with Tonks (and that sent my stomach rolling, a little. Would I also have to be with a girl years my junior?) and he was dead and unable to raise his son.

Most of this was not his fault, and I understand that. But Remus was passive, and in trying to hide his wolfish, predatory nature, he came off flaky, unreliable. Not good enough, not strong enough, not trying hard enough.

_He means well, but not well enough._

And I understood being passive in his shit show of a life! I really, truly empathized. He was shunned, driven out, betrayed by those he loved in death or in prison, Dumbledore would’ve never let him keep Harry, and yet…

And yet he should’ve done more.

“And you still question why you were chosen for this?” Lupa’s raspy growl brought me back to the silky hall, and I stilled.

“It was just a story, you know? A fairytale, with messages about equality and human nature and the author was a bit of a dick but it was my mother’s favourite story and I fell in love with it.”

“But Remus is a side character? If I was Harry, or even Ron or Draco...maybe Hermione. If I was Dumbledore or Snape or Sirius.” I could really mess things up then, I mused. I could turn the wizarding world on its head, run the streets red with Voldemort’s blood.

If he bleeds. At this point, he’s more caricature, more classical villain than real.

“But you are not any of them. You are Remus.”

“But I’m not! I’m just Samirah-“

“Samirah of the wolves, calm yourself.” I flinched, hard. It felt like I was being rebuked, and I didn’t like it.

“I don’t want this,” I whisper to her. “I’ve only ever wanted to be happy.” It was my mother’s dearest dream for me, to be happy. Even my name, hell, meant jovial, because my mother had suffered for years to have me and even then, all she’d wanted was for me to be happy.

But life doesn’t work that way.

But death should. I wanted to dissolve, to enter the afterlife. I wanted to be the norm, not the exception, because being more is the road to infinite unhappiness, and I didn’t want to rock the boat because I was tired and I didn’t want to play this game.

 **Let. Me. Die**. 

**There’s this gaping chasm in me that calls to go home, but I am dead, rotting in a morgue by now.**

I can see my brother’s pale face, the angry look in Aasia’s eyes, the terrible loss in Drew’s. I can see my plants being given to Aileen, who will take care of them and cry as she does, Grace holding her tight. My father standing in front of my mother’s grave as he yells at her for taking me too quickly, but he is too quick to rage.

My mother never wanted to live, that was true, but she tried to protect us. And she wasn’t the one to take me, someone else was, and at the end, my mother and I are the same. Dead so young by forces beyond our control. Her head and my heedlessness. So same and yet so different.

( _Deaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddead-)_

_(Redonthestreets,redinthesheets,wriststornmetalflyingmother-)_

_(Don’tgo-)_

_(Pleasedon’t-)_

_(Dͩoͦn’ᴛⷮgoͦ-̄)_

_(Рⷬleͤaͣs͛eͤdͩoͦn’ᴛⷮ-̄)_

_Let me go. Please._

_Let me go._

_I swear, I will kill myself and fight my way back if you don’t let me go. I do not speak it but it resounds through the room regardless, like a thunderous gale._

The wolf shifts, and knocks me to the ground. Air rushes out of my chest as she bares her teeth at me.

“Do not be a fool,” she snarls. “You have no choice. The boy became wolf-touched, and then you became the boy. And you will honour this life given to you by living.”

I lay in the pools of blood, on silk, and her teeth are dangerously close to my throat.

I’m shaking, her amber eyes cold. I have pushed her too far, and I am frightened.

“I am not a wolf,” I whisper. “I will never be what you want me to be.” I am to play Remus, but I am not him. I am not strong enough to be passive, to accept my lot. I will push and it will change everything.

“Then what are you? What will you be?” She asks, disgusted.

“I am an aardvark. Or a rattlesnake. A crow if pushed.” Her eyes are considering.

“We can work with that, but at the end, you will be more beast than girl.” I smiled, softly. She doesn’t understand, but then again, neither do I. We’re speaking of riddles and saying nothing and everything all at once. I will try but I will hate every moment of it

Maybe, by the end of it all, I’ll be more beast than girl. But perhaps being a beast would hurt less than being myself.

“When I die, where will I go? If I play my part, will you take me back?”

“The wolves did not bring you here.” A non-answer, an excuse.

“But would you try?” The wolf bares her teeth, and then nods.

“Should you accept fate’s whims and not needlessly endanger yourself, the wolves will try to send your soul to rest.” I nod in agreement. It’s the best deal I’ll get. I’ll be Remus, I’ll become him so well our bones mesh, but I’ll do better.

“I agree to your terms.”

“And the wolves to yours.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think a lot of people would be estatic to be in Harry Potter, but those people are also children who only see the good stuff, or maybe only see Harry Potter's era. The maruder era was, in a lot of ways, a lot darker.
> 
> And besides, we love remus, but we don't necessarily want to be him. Sam (and her name truly does mean jovial, or lively in entertainment) has her own issues, a lot of issues, and for her, reincarnation as Remus "werewolf" lupin is terrible. Because she knows she's going to fuck stuff up, and she hasn't been a child in a very long time.
> 
> (Also, she wants to see her dead mother. Can't do that if she's not technically dead.)
> 
> Lupa is interesting. And Lupa isn't just a wolf either. Roman Mythos, anyone?


	3. scared of all the silly things

**“It's impossible to protect your kids against disappointment in life.”**

_ Nicholas Sparks _   
  


I must’ve made an odd sight, I have to admit. A depressed four-year-old wasn’t exactly something you saw every day, and for good reason.  
  
I was solemn, and I cried quietly by myself, both in pain from my injuries and about the events that had happened. The nurses assumed it was over the attack, which they weren’t wrong about, but it was also about the loss of my old life, the way I had died, the guilt I felt, the duties ahead of me.  
  
 _The crushing burden of living._  
  
If I kept my mouth shut, except to occasionally ask for chocolate pudding, then maybe I could pretend I really was a four-year-old child, albeit one who had faced something terrible.  
  
The nurses didn’t bother me too much, but it wasn’t really malicious the way I’d expected it, me being turned and all that. It was more that they weren’t sure how to talk to me, this odd little child with grief in his eyes and bandages all over.  
  
The nurses in that ward were sworn to secrecy about my condition, but they were morbidly curious. And they were upset, on my behalf. And there was pity, on the fact that my life was ruined.  
  
“So young, to face such a tragedy.” They whispered behind doors, not realising that my new werewolf senses meant I could hear them, even as a very small child. It was fine, I was lamenting my fate as well.  
  
The hospital smelled like itchy green healing magic, blood and other fluids, and of sweat and people. It made my nose twitch something terrible, and it made me irrationally upset that I couldn’t shut out the constant stimulus. My sense were on overdrive, after all.  
  
I’d had headaches- my mother’s side all suffered from them. My grandmother only had to sniff the slightest unpleasant perfume to get a splitting headache, but for my mother, it was overexertion and sound. Mine weren’t migraines, but they could be severe.  
  
But this was something else.  
  
Overstimulation with wolf senses felt like raw rusty nails burning through my skin and temples. When I wasn’t carefully eating, or doing the exercises necessary, I was trying to sleep.  
  
And though it really shouldn’t have helped, the blatant avoidance of people who actually knew Remus grounded me a little. It kept me sane, and I began coming out of my shell. It gave me time away to sort through my memories, my identities, what I planned to do when I got home. It gave me time to honestly cry about my situation and put it a little behind me. I wasn’t feeling great about the life stretching ahead of me, but I was resigned to it.  
  
My parents didn’t visit me, but that wasn’t neglectful of them. Werewolf attacks were always isolated, and my attack was an art in cruelty. They regrew my tendons and bones, had to rebuild parts of my gut. And even then, my survival was so ridiculous that I knew there was some sort of fate/machinations crap involved. So, no visitors, not until I was more than stable.  
  
Werewolves could be born or made, yes, but in general, both were rare. You needed, according to a very old doctor who took the time to check up on my “ferality” two were parents to produce a were child, and those who were turned only really survived if they were older than fifteen, or after puberty.  
  
I was a miracle, and that was largely due to forces I didn’t know pushing me into a life I didn’t want.  
  
Still, there would be lasting effects. You can’t survive an injury like that without some constant drawback. My bones would grow fragile, and if I grew older, then arthritis and osteoporosis were almost certain. Anaemia was also an issue, as was the whole idea that my immune system would be chronically depressed.  
  
They weren’t really supposed to tell me this, but the doctor clearly didn’t care, so I clarified as much as I could. If my parents were as overprotective as the hospital staff made them out to be (and they were right to complain, because my father had threatened to break down the door or something), they might be tempted to keep me away from the more terrible predictions of health, and while I appreciated that in a sense, it also would make things super fucking inconvenient.  
  
Remus Lupin really was destined to die at forty, wasn’t he? The thought made me feel a little relieved, knowing there were less than thirty-six years left for me in this world.  
  
I’m certain that it wasn’t healthy to think like that, but who was going to tell me otherwise?  
  
I had a few favourites in the hospital staff, because if they weren’t going to ostracise me for being a wolf, then charming them would surely be advantageous, if only so that I could come visit them when my health was shitty. I tried to not be demanding or cry too loudly, and would listen quietly if the nurses told me something.  
  
(It helped that I didn’t quite want their attention anyway. I wanted to wallow in peace.)  
  
It worked, somewhat. While no one was bending over to adopt me, the nurses would give me small treats, tell me stories, and make my treatment extra gentle. I was still terribly bored, but the nurses could tell when I was too tired, and no one complained when I inevitably fell asleep to calm voices storytelling.  
  
It wasn’t nice, being at the hospital, but it wasn’t terrible. And not-terrible was pretty good, all things considered.  
  
Inevitably, the day for my release came. I’d been in the hospice for almost a month, and I was to leave because of the full moon.  
  
I was to come back if injured, of course, but most of my external injuries had healed, so while I was sore and struggling with moving, my muscles weren’t shredded meat anymore.  
  
The reason I was nervous on this particular day was that my parents were coming to take me home.  
  
I’ll be honest, emotionally I felt like my heart was being shredded by Greyback himself. I loved my parents, and it felt as if there was no room to love these veritable strangers. But these were Remus’s parents, and they didn’t realize their son had been replaced by an interdimensional traveller, and they deserved to be loved.  
  
They deserved their son, except I wasn’t quite sure I could be that. I was too broken to even consider pretending to love them because something about that made me feel sick in my stomach.  
  
Love was aiming too high, I decided, but respect was something I could do. Maybe even like, though it would take time. I would try though, and trying was always the hardest part.  
  
And I awaited them in my room, a nurse’s voice echoing in the halls. I could scarcely breathe.  
  
“He’s right here, the darling. He’s been such a good patient, not fussy at all.” A female voice murmured something...grateful? In agreement? But three sets of footsteps echoed through the halls.  
  
I wondered about these people. I had the faintest outlines in my head of Hope, of long honey golden hair and softness, of Lyall’s thundering voice and stern grey eyes. Remus was gone but these outlines remained, and it occurred to me I could pretend to have contracted a sudden case of trauma-induced amnesia if things went south.  
  
I waited, hands wringing neat grey sheets between my tiny fingers. I worried about all sorts of things, like maybe they’d look into my eyes and see a young adult instead of a child, or maybe they’d see I was a monster, damaged beyond control. Maybe Remus Lupin’s parents hated him for being a wolf. After all, Lyall Lupin was a loud supporter of Werewolf Regulation, and the same laws he had passed through the Ministry now bound me as well.

The thought brought up a wave of bitterness, but I calmed myself, because four-year-olds don’t debate the finer points of how one’s actions hurt their children, and because my four-year-old body was more prone to crying than I was.  
  
They enter the room.

And something in my head clicks, oddly enough.

A little voice whispers, _Mam. Tad._ And I shiver, the little boy’s voice whispering in greater and greater intensity. _Mam, Tad, Mam, TadMamTadMamTadMam-_

 _Stop,_ I thought. _Please stop._

And then I looked up at them, and then I realise that Remus wasn’t entirely gone, was he?

Because I felt a rush of Remus’s love for them, and then I loved them too.

I can’t even describe it, except maybe as a sort of weaponized love or extreme fondness. I looked at my ‘parents’ and fell in love with them.  
  
Not as in...romantically, because that would be gross as fuck, but as in I felt something slide into my place, my little eye motes clicking as I realize the extent of affection ~~I Remus~~ _we_ have for them.  
  
This wasn’t just a pair of strangers.  
  
These were my parents. The second pair, but important to ~~me Remus~~ _us_.  
  
And look, I loved my mother, in my past life, and I adored my father. I love them, present tense, so much that it hurts because I don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell in being with them again.  
  
But this? This was something equal to that. Samirah loved Arshia and Rajal, and Remus loved Hope and Lyall, and together we loved both sets. Encompassing, entirely, love-  
  
Hope’s face was an art in heartbreak, her mouth trembling. Her fingers twitched as if she wanted to touch me but was afraid of hurting me. Lyall stood beside her, face stony but eyes full of pain.  
  
“Annwyl?” She whispered, and the boy in my head sang.

_Darling._

And to my utter mortification, I burst into tears. Choked up tears, snotty, ugly tears and she rushed forward, holding me tight, pressing my head into her neck. Remus was wailing in my head in rapid, rapid Welsh, maybe, and I was clinging to her.  
  
I couldn’t help it, I was only four years old, physically, and this is my mother from another dimension and she’s cradling me, the same way my mom used to do it and it’s been so long and-  
  
Remus pressed us close to her, and I continue to sob, shoulders shuddering at the force of my tears. I didn’t want-

I didn’t want to love them-

Because they didn’t protect me from the worst event of my life, thus far, and they weren’t there and I knew, I knew it wasn’t their fault but it didn’t stop be for being incredibly upset about it, but I shoved it down into the deeper parts of my heart because they were here now, weren’t they?

My mother balanced me on her hip as she stood up, and I ignored everything, everyone, even Lyall. Hope was keeping me tethered like a kite string and she smelled like sweat and garden soil and typewriter ink and I didn’t want to exist-

The discharge process might’ve stretched out for hours or could’ve taken mere seconds, but I didn’t care and I didn’t know because I spent that time holding onto Hope, sniffling.

To her credit, Hope only pressed me closer, even when we left the hospital by Floo to the Lupin Estate.

A lot of Wizarding Houses, I think, have names. Like the Burrow, Grimmauld Palace. But my mother was a muggle, and I was a baby, so the Lupins kept it simple.

And honestly, I didn’t know what to expect, but we walked into a well-furnished living room, and I had to mentally reassess some things.

So, adult Remus Lupin was impoverished, but the house seemed well decorated, well maintained. A typical middle-class family’s house, no paint peeling, no doors hanging off the frames. Comfortable.

So had the Wolfsbane Potion been the thing to bankrupt Remus, or was the war enough to do that? What had happened to this house? Had the Deatheaters burnt it down? Did the Wizarding World have a concept of insurance?

I snorted internally. The place didn’t even have ambulatory services- expecting insurance was a bit much.

The Remus-in-my-head gushed about things in Welsh, which I could understand after some trouble, but his muscle memory and leftover spatial memory was enough for me to instinctively know where things were. For example, my room was three doors down the hall, to the right.

Lyall gave me an inscrutable look, before going to the other end of the house. _The study_ , came a whisper.

I tugged on Hope’s sleeve, pointing to the hall that housed my room.

“O, i'ch ystafell? Efallai y dylech chi aros yma heddiw…” She trailed off, looking at me. I froze as Remus-in-my-head translated instinctively.

She was saying I should stay with her today. I shook my head, pointing again, and she sighed, carrying me to my room, gently placing me on my bed before pulling up the sheets.

“Gwell i chi fod yn gorffwys, un bach. Mae eich iechyd yn peri pryder.” She gave me a look, and I made a face.

She wanted me to rest? But resting was all I’d done for a month! She kissed me on the forehead and told me to call if I needed anything before heading back to the kitchen.  
  
Part of me didn’t want her to leave, because again, four-year-old, but the adult part of me was slightly miffed at being tucked in. I tried to shift my jelly legs to be more comfortable.

 _Well._ Maybe she was onto something, with the whole resting thing.

I had all the intentions of staying up, and figuring out why the hell Remus was in the back of my head, and I did, for a while. Lupa had said Remus had died, so were his instinctive memories just the bits left behind? I hoped so because it hadn’t ever occurred to me that my parents would be speaking a language other than English.

(I wondered if Lupa had lied to me about Remus to appease me. If she had, and it turned out that the real Remus was in my head the entire time, no power on Earth would stop me from jumping down a flight of stairs and breaking my neck. I was not a thief.)

But I did, sadly, fall asleep, in a bedsheet that smelled a bit stale for disuse. I was woken up when the sun began setting by Lyall, who was taciturn.

He picked me up and walked briskly to the outside, where we walked down into a cellar of sorts. I swallowed because it was dark, and I knew what was coming.

This was the dark hole I’d transform in.

I was placed on the ground in the empty cellar as my father in this life buried four silver coins into four corners. He did a quick spell and I could feel the electric connections from the wards. It stung against my skin, like a slight abrasive, and I knew I couldn’t pass the lines set for me.

Tomorrow, I would have silver induced burns, wouldn't I? I wondered if even baby werewolves mutilated themselves.

“Remus, I will come to get you in the morning. This is only a precaution, and you won't be able to leave the room. Father will come back, okay? It's only for safety.” I nodded, slightly relieved that he spoke in English. Lyall’s eyes softened and he patted my shoulder in an emotionally constipated way. I gave him a sad smile, and he walked out the square and climbed back up the stairs, giving me one last look before climbing out the cellar and shutting the flat doors.

He didn’t tell me what was coming, perhaps not to scare me. But I knew, and it didn’t hurt any less.

I hugged myself, waiting for my bones to melt away.

I closed my eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so his first ever transformation is coming up! fun...
> 
> Remus is gone, Lupa didn't lie about that, but bits and pieces are left behind, which is good! Because his mother is Welsh and is determined to only speak that to him. Lyall is British, but he doesn't give a shit and speaks Welsh as well. He only speaks English to Remus because he wants him to know the language lol.
> 
> Remus hasn't had time to explore his house or the surrounding areas, and I'm American so I'm probably wrong, but Hope and Lyall met in a forest near Cardiff. Thus, I tentatively place their house in Fforest Fawr, perhaps in an unplottable area. They're already kind of isolated, though I have plans for them to be close in proximity to a mixed town...because wtf is Sam going to do for seven-ish years? 
> 
> Hope is a queen, Lyall is guilt tm because the same laws he pushed for now trap his own spawn, not to mention Greyback attacked Remus because of Lyall...guilt everywhere.
> 
> Another great fact is that the Lupins admitted him to a Welsh wizarding hospital, which is why they can keep his furry problem under wraps. Mungo's is obligated to report werewolves to the Ministry, St.Gwenffrewi is not. So you know, if you were wondering how the Lupins got away with keeping this a secret, then there you go, unplottable territory plus a hospital run by people who want to tell the British Ministry to stick it where it hurts.
> 
> (Plus, Lyall was super anti-werewolf. He's the last person you'd suspect of hiding a werewolf son, and the attack wasn't public. Greyback meant to kill, not turn, so Remus/Sam is relatively safe for now.)
> 
> (Saint Winifred/Gwenffrewi is actually a very interesting figure, and the patron of unwanted advances, and I chose her because there's this healing spring associated with her..anyway. She's interesting, and you can looked her up if you want.)
> 
> This is just me being a masive nerd.


	4. the turning

> **the wolves were in a tragic scene**
> 
> **things falling apart at the seams**
> 
> _Mario William Vitale_

“I think,” I pause, “that there’s something wrong with me.”   
  
Smudgy Smudgerson gives me a silent but judgemental look. I glare at him.  
  
“Well, you’re not great either, princess. You’re just a suspicious smudge on the wall!” I point angrily, before stopping, leaning back on the floor.  
  
“Maybe there is something to the whole ‘moon causes crazy’ theory.”  
  
Smudgy Smudgerson is silent. I think he agrees with me though.  
  
“But then again, what the fuck do I know? I’m just a teacher, not a biologist or behaviour psychologist!” I stop, scowling. “Ashana is a biologist though.”   
  
Smudgy scoffs. I nod. “Yeah, she was a real bitch. I bet she’s having a fun time though. None of this interdimensional bullshit.”  
  
The cellar’s ceiling was nice. Drippy in spaces.  
  
It had been ten minutes since Lyall had left me, and I was already losing my mind.  
  
The sun was slowly retreating from the cracks in the walls, and I sighed, mentally bracing myself for what was yet to come.  
  
Oh, who was I kidding? I was terrified, like piss my pants kind of terrified.  
  
Wait.  
  
Pants.   
  
I quickly stripped out of my clothing, folding it up and rolling it into a burrito. I threw it up out of the ring.  
  
I wasn’t sure if JK Rowling was to be trusted in the matter of werewolf shifts. Where do the fucking clothes go? I didn’t really want to be choked by my own shirt.  
  
I know it’s stupid to be looking for logic when it’s impossible by ordinary means for a person to become a wolf, but still.   
  
A little bit of logic in the face of madness.  
  
At least I wasn’t one of those super logical, anal-retentive people who need an explanation for everything. My father used to say I’d believe anything if I tried hard enough.  
  
Like my mother. Except, she believed in monsters because she was a writer, and because her head was too dark for monsters not to exist.  
  
I always believed in werewolves, though, and look where it got me. I became the werewolfiest werewolf to wolf.  
  
Remus, the poor, scraggly thing, was freaking out. I tried to calm him, but honestly, I couldn’t. What was coming was going to hurt.  
  
My bones already ached. They felt heavy as led, which was why I was laying on the floor like a limp noodle.  
  
“Come on, Sammy, we just have to get through this.” My muscles began tensing unconsciously to the moon’s pull, and I sucked in a startled breath.  
  
“Calm. Calm. Project the calm.” I could already feel the tears welling up in my eyes and I dug my nails into my shoulders, trying to keep my breathing even.

I was an adult. I’m an adult. I can deal. Think about how real Remus must’ve felt. I try to comfort myself by telling myself the situation for me wasn’t as terrible, but it just upsets me to know how much worse the original had it. I knew what was coming to some extent- did Remus?

No. He didn’t.

I patted my own hair, pretending someone else was trying to comfort me. It doesn’t really work.

“Okay,” I whispered to myself. “Distraction time.” I wracked my head for things I could do, which basically amounted to singing. I would tell myself stories, but I was too easily distractable.

Okay. Singing. I can do that.

My voice in my old life was kind of shit, but Remus had a soft, clear voice, so maybe this would work out better? I tried to think of any songs that would fit the surreal environment and then I laughed because I was so, so tired and it would be so easy to die. My body was going to break, betray me, and I-

I laughed even louder, tears streaking down my cheeks. The laughter turns into breathy little sobs.

“I’m so sorry Remus, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry you went through this, I’m so sorry I’m here, I’m so sorry that you were alone for this so many times-” I laid on the ground, pressing my cheeks against the dirt floor as I cried.

My voice wavered as I tried to sing the old nursery rhyme my mother had sung me. “Nilla, Nilla odi vaa. Nillaamal odi vaa. Malai mela aeri vaa. Malliga poo kondu vaa.” I sobbed harder as I tried to sing the second verse, giving up temporarily to catch my breath.

“Vatta vatta nilavay, vanna mukil poove, pattam pola parantu vaa, pamparam pol sutri vaa,” I hummed the end, choked with sobs as I pretended I was okay-

My skin began tightening, rippling slightly. Then it began itching, tightening to a choking point, and I gasped.

I was already on the ground, but the tightness made me collapse entirely, and my fingers curled and uncurled, twitching-

My skin itched, and my breath was laboured as my ribs felt too sharp, and my heart was pounding out of my skin. I rested my cheek on the dirt floor, saliva dripping out as I cried out.My back arched and my knees began vibrating and pushing back, and then my leg twisted and I screamed as my leg became a hind leg-

(bone-cracking bending, breaking-)

I sobbed as my fingers curved and my nails grew, hair sprouting up on my arms, my tailbone burning as my skin tore open for a new limb-

(a bone tail, a bone tail ripping out-)

My nose began growing, my jaw being pulled like taffy, my nose so far ahead of my face that I can see it darken, a snout-

(smells, too much, too sharp-)

  
I whine as my head throbs with the new information, and my gums bleed as my teeth reshape and I screamed-howled- in pain and I looked up to the see the silver wards dancing around me with new strength and-

And my eyes sharpen even more and I can see the dust motes in the dark, displaced under my heavy breath, and my nose flares because I can smell living, breathing people a distance away, two people, magic and honey and herbs-

The woods and water in the creek and the bugs buzz around-

The rabbits in their burrows, the cardinals in the trees-

_(wrongwrongwrongwrongwrong-)_

_(toomuchtoomuchtoomuch)  
_

_(themoonthegloriousmoon)  
_

_(andallthewolveshowl-)_

_(Umma, Idontwannabehereanymore-)  
_

_(̈́͠U̒̈́̕m̐̾͘m̓̓͒a͛̾,͐̐I̿̚͝d͛̾͛ö́͑͝n͘t͆͠͝w̾̈́͝a̚͠n̒̈́̒n̓͘͠a̽̓͒b̓͛e̐͠h̐e̓͝r̓̕e͆͒̈́a͆̓̓n̔̓͝y͑̓m̔͝͠o͑̒̚r̐͆̕e͋͝-͐̚͠)̒̈́͝  
_

_(h̒̚e͛͋̕l̐͝p͛͒̕m͐̿̕e͛h͒̈́e̒̈́̓l̔̕͝p̿͌͒m̈́̽͆e͛̈́͆s̽̓͝o͊̾͝m̒̚͠e̒̐̈́o͛͆͝n̈́͝͝e̽ḧ́͒̚e̿̚͠l̾p̓̿͘m͌͊̒e̒̈́̚)_

_(a͋̚n̚͝d̿͌͝ s͛̓͒e͌̓͌e͛̚͝ t̓͠h͒͐e͊̓̒ m̈́͑o͒̓̕o͊̾̚n̈́̚ a̾͑͝n͐̚͝d̐͊ h͊͑̚o̾̿w̔͋̓l̈́̿-͒͠ )_

Awareness comes in flickers, like a stray candle in the wind. The wolf wavers inside me, and I briefly hold control in my mind as my body begins to change once again.

The wolf’s paws and legs straighten out, pale skin peeking through as the fur is sucked (?) back into my skin. I momentarily realise my fur is a lovely pink.

Well. Not pink. But a very orangish, pinkish colour, maybe strawberry blonde? Which was nice, and stuff, but also made no sense? Remus had the same hair as Hope, honey-golden with hidden streaks of brown, except his curled. Lyall’s hair was black as night, and Greyback’s was…dark, in the night. 

I stop thinking about it when I catch sight of my wrists and knees. Everything is mottled purple and green, bruises at my joints from the strain of magical stretching. It hurts like crazy, and I catch my reflection on a dull grey barrel, golden eyes staring back at me. 

I was certain that I was, indeed, a wolf though. Not a weird wraith thing like Remus was in the movies. I didn’t know if that was an inaccuracy or if I was just weird.

My mind flashed with too sharp memories, and I cradled my head gently, temples throbbing.

So new fact- the transformation wasn’t completely unremembered. There are flashes of coherence but after the fact. So, I could see the play by play, but I couldn’t actually make decisions while wolfing out, and that kind of sucked.

There’s the smell of burning hair lingering at the edge of the wards, and my singed hands and arms further corroborate my theory. The wolf had tried to break free, only to get burned. I touch my face, only to find the same burned skin scabbing on my nose.

The sun was rising, yes, but until sunrise ended, I found that I still possessed the wolf’s extraordinary senses.

They faded rapidly as the sun rose higher and higher, the cellar door clanging open as my father undid the wards. His face, I could see from a distance, was tired, sleepless. 

His eyes darted over my prone form, and he flinched when I looked into his eyes.

“You eyes-” I blink, a little off-balance, and watch as my superior vision flickers into normal enhanced human vision.

I could no longer make out the wood grains on the cellar doors in the dark, but I could see the flecks of blue in his eyes. My eyes back to normal, I watch quietly as he says something in Latin, the spells around the four silver coins unweaving themselves. He pushes one silver coin out of the arrangement, and the silver threads fall. I don’t get up, nor do I really look at him.

“Are you alright?” My father’s eyes are observing, mouth downturned in guilt. He gently takes my wrist in his hands and looks at me. 

“Burns. On my face and arms. Bruises on my elbows and knees.” He nods before pulling out his wand. He murmurs healing spells, white light fading the burns on my arms to dull scars. My joints balloon before shrinking, the bruising progressing rapidly before healing. He touched the tip of the wand to my nose, and I flinch back.

He sighs, pulling me closer, and the burned skin nearly peels off as it heals.

He gives me another look before wrapping me in his arms, resting his head on top of mine as he rocks back on his heels, standing up.

“It’s going to be okay, Remus.” I smile into his shirt.

“Okay,” I whisper, even though I know it’s a lie. Nothing is going to be okay, not now, not ever. He continues to hold me as the tears well up in my eyes and I sob into his shirt. “Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't like the chapter I wrote, so I rewrote parts of it. Now that this is over, now we can move onto the shit I want to write, like... M A G I C and how Sam spends the long seven years preparing for a war that's yet to come.
> 
> (Is there anything you want to see?)
> 
> Nila Nila Odi vaa is a real Tamil nursery rhyme, and I included it because I thought it was super ironic.
> 
> It's something that mothers sing to children at night, and the lyrics mean as such:
> 
> _Nila, Nila, Odi Vaa  
>  Nillaamal Odi Vaa  
> Malai Mela Eri Vaa  
> Malligai Poo Kondu Vaa._
> 
> Moon, Moon, come running to me.  
> Don't stop while you run.  
> Climb over the mountain and,  
> Bring a Jasmine Flower when you come to me.
> 
> The second stanza is:
> 
> _Vatta vatta nilavay,  
>  vanna mukil poove,  
> pattam pola parantu vaa,  
> pamparam pol sutri vaa_
> 
> The round, round moon  
> Wide faced flower (I think?)  
> Fly as if you are a kite  
> come round and round like a spinning top.
> 
> It's a poem essentially asking the moon to come visit, which is kind of the opposite of what Sam wants.


	5. value and such

> ** "We're all human, aren't we? Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving."  **
> 
> _J.K. Rowling_  
> 

The rest of that day is spent in a sleepy haze, my body trying to remain unconscious as it works off the strain of the transformation and the subsequent rapid healing. Hope finally wakes me up for dinner, and she carried me on her hip to the kitchen table set for three.

The tablecloth was a rich grey with lace ends, and I stumbled into my seat with all the grace of a newborn colt. My mother tucked in a napkin into my shirt and I tried to remember which hand uses a fork.

Look, I was American, and not to mention, an immigrant. I ate a lot of rice and curry, and that’s eaten by hand. I wasn’t bereft of manners, I just had a different set of them, and quite frankly, I didn’t care enough to learn what the hell a soup spoon was.

Lyall had the fork in his left hand though, and I realised there was a very minimalistic set up anyway, so I figured it was fine. I was four, no one would expect much of me.

I quickly remembered that I had to be careful about the meat I ate, lest it was bacon. I have nothing against it, I just didn’t want to ingest it, because I was certain generations of my Muslim ancestors would be rolling in their graves.

Besides, I wasn’t sure if I could stomach any meat at all right now. What if the wolf liked it too much? With my luck, I’d end up gagging all over the table.

I tugged on Hope’s sleeve. Once I had her attention, I asked in stilted Welsh which dishes had meat in them.

She pointed out the two that were, smiling wryly.

"Ydych chi eisiau bwyd am gig nawr,  _ cornyn _ ?” I gave her a look. No, I was not hungry for meat, I was trying to avoid it.

“Na,” I muttered, helping myself to what looked like eggs. I shoved some into my mouth when I paused, really tasting the food.

_ Holy shit. _

It was really, really yummy! I dug in, ignoring my mother’s disapproving look. This was ridiculously good, I had to learn the recipe!

“Dyn ifanc, ble mae'ch moesau wedi mynd? Bwyta'n araf, rwyt ti'n mynd i dagu.” My mother stared at me till I slowed down, while I grumbled internally. I did  _ too _ have manners, and I was  _ not _ going to choke. 

I still took seconds, ignoring my parents’ glances. 

“Ah, Remus, we thought you hated eggs?” My father began, slowly. I looked up from my plate.

“Tastes good.” Was all I offered, silently berating the old Remus. Who the fuck didn’t like eggs? Stupid twit.

At the very least, if they kept questioning my sudden change in taste, I had a ready-made reason.  _ The wolf likes it _ was a pretty reusable excuse, even though we were all avoiding the elephant in the room.

The rest of the dinner had similarly stilted conversation, with my mother trying to start something, only to trail off as she watched me eat. Lyall just..stared. My mother, in the end, hesitated, before giving me this weird pancake-esque sweet which I happily nommed. My father paused before picking me up, sticky hands and all.

“Bedtime story?” I personally didn’t care, but Remus was cheering, so I nodded, letting his joy suffuse through my face. Lyall’s eyes softened, and he set me down on the living room sofa as hed rifled through the large shelves. He picked out a well-worn copy of  **_ The Tales of Beedle the Bard _ ** and sat down next to me. I let _Remus-in-my-head_ guide me- he wanted to snuggle, so I snuggled. Remus wanted his favourite story, I pointed it out on the table of contents. 

It was nice, in a sense. My parents didn’t read bedtime stories to me, because it never occurred to them. But they did read to us, every chance they got. I remember going to the public library every Saturday for story hour and later on just to pick out books, my father’s deep, drawling voice reading out recipes to us under the kitchen light. My mother’s random poetry and mishmashed stories and Harry Potter dramatics.

Beedle Bard was interesting, in a cultural sense. It set the stage for a world that was new to me, and I took the time to think about it. The Wizarding World is a place where magical children are loved and treasured beyond all, and abusive parents were seen as monsters beyond anything else, regardless of station in society. A place where blood purity was seen as a positive, but also a place where the ingenuity of half-bloods and muggleborns weren’t overlooked. Where women were equal, sometimes more powerful than men, where formalised magic was honoured and pagan traditions scorned, where religion was nonexistent and cultural clashes came from differences in magical use, not because of skin colour.

I went to bed that day thinking about all the things that didn’t quite match up in the stories. Magical children were valued, so was it Dumbledore’s machinations that led to Harry’s placement? Were the Blacks so powerful that society overlooked their abusiveness, or was it something else? Why were the prejudices against muggleborns more and more overt in the story? Was it Voldemort and the recentness of the First War, or was it the ongoing stresses in both the Muggle and Magical world? What about the slight systematic misogyny in the books, the lack of cultural exchange? The magical communities were insular, of course, but never within themselves.

I was missing a lot of things, plus a lot of practical interaction. Children's fairytales are more of a projection of behaviour than any real guide, after all. But still, so many questions!

Remus’s room, by the way, was kind of cute, and I was lucky that I showed up early enough that any changes I’d eventually made weren’t huge red flags. There was a low twin bed, windows with curtains tightly shut, and ash wooded cabinets. Eventually, I’d ask for a desk, but there were toys in the cabinet and soft clothes. The walls were painted robin egg blue, comforting and soft.

I pushed the curtains aside, only to freeze at the sight of the moon. Great, Remus’s residual fear of it started early. I grabbed the curtain and covered it up once more, sighing deeply before snuggling underneath the covers.

I found it hard to sleep, however. I had come so early, which was both a good and bad thing. Good thing- I could keep Lily and James Potter alive. The bad thing was, I had little information on how to do that, of even if I wanted to. It sounded callous, but changing their deaths meant numerous other details would fall apart and might shift the narrative onto Neville, which was something I wasn’t looking forward to.

But still. I was ruled by my heart, and if I could prevent deaths, then wasn’t it my duty to stop them? I felt conflicted, and I fell asleep in a state of turmoil.

_ That feeling wouldn’t abate anytime soon. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Are you hungry for meat now, corn?" Corn is like, a pet name or an endearment, it kind of refers to being swaddled, or the swaddling cloth...
> 
> "Where have your manners gone, young man? Eat slowly, or you'll choke."
> 
> Hope is just mothering him, honestly.
> 
> I'd love to hear from you guys? Even if it's just to call me dumb, lol.


	6. onwards and up

> ** "I spent my whole childhood wishing I were older and now I'm spending my adulthood wishing I were younger." **
> 
> _ Ricky Schroder  
>  _

The thing about life as a child was that I wasn’t able to plan things. I wasn’t really in control, which was fair, I was a four-year-old, but still. I couldn’t exactly study for hours and hours and practice cool magical stuff because I was always within my parents’ sight.

I tried to not run away too much, mostly because Hope and Lyall were…nice.

(And maybe I loved them. Just a little.)

Hope usually set me on the ground next to her when she was cooking, and I was supposed to amuse myself with the small trinket like toys or the magical xylophone, but usually, I’d climb up to the counter and watch as she cooked. Eventually, she accepted that I liked watching her do that, so she started to explain exactly how and why she was cooking certain dishes. Even if I wasn’t really learning Welsh cuisine from osmosis, I have to admit, it did make me more comfortable around her. It gave me a routine, and something to look forward to.

Lyall, on the other hand, was usually busy with his job and such, and he seemed to be doing something very important if the stress lines were of any indication. Initially, he wouldn’t let me enter his office, but after wearing him down-

(“Can I play in your office?”

“Um…it’s rather dangerous, Remus. Not now?”

“Okay then.” Soft thuds as I walk away, repeating the same ritual daily. )

-it was in inevitable that he’d let me in.

Of course, it was conditional on the fact that I did not touch anything, which was fair. Lyall wasn’t the type to store blatantly dark artefacts, but then again, magic was capricious at best and I didn’t know what to touch. I was happy to even be allowed, and I played with an enchanted toy train as he wrote his…proposals? Ministry things? Papers with suspicious green ink?

It was peaceful and nice and I had no plans to do anything, not yet. 

I was satisfied just existing, adjusting to my new reality, and slowly filing away things for later.

* * *

You might be wondering as to why I didn’t plan anything, why I didn’t study anything. Surely, I could learn all the Hogwarts curriculum beforehand, surely I could find some mystical, magical object that would prevent the war and give me infinite powers. Surely, I, a lowly four-year-old, could embark on a fairytale-esque journey and become the master of death or something similarly inane.

Ha. _No._

First of all, life doesn’t work that way. I might have adult sensibilities, but my mind was still a child’s. I remembered my old life and such, but I had neither the motivation nor the ability to devour entire encyclopedias. I was smart, yes, but by no means Hermione fucking Granger. I figured I could give myself a year or two to adjust to the whole werewolf conundrum/reincarnation shtick before jumping into anything.

As to why I didn’t write nor plan anything yet, well.

The simplistic reason, as I found out thankfully early on, was that Remus couldn’t read. Oh sure, he could speak both languages well, and with practice, Welsh was somewhat familiar to me, but my parents had never taught me how to read.

I actually have no clue if that’s normal or not, considering I only really started devouring books in first grade (the kindergarten teacher was a bitch and quite frankly, I was a crybaby with undiagnosed anxiety), so I had no clue if wizards were monumentally late or if everything was going according to plan. In fact, I’d wondered why they didn’t send me off to primary school or something when I realised they were letting me digest all my pent up wolf-trauma.

Besides, being absent three days a month was a bit of hard sell. Maybe in the future, they’d explain it away, but for now, I was to be taught by my parents.

When my father did sit me down to teach me how to write, I had a leg up. While tracing over the parchment worksheets (think letter writing practice), I had to slow myself down over the course of two weeks before I was shakily writing big letters.

It was fun, and it was almost practice for delaying my development in other ways. I wanted to be ordinary, honestly, and picking up writing too fast was a glaring red flag. I didn’t want to be marked as a prodigy, not now, not ever.

The real trouble, as it turned out, was when my mother decided to teach me how to write Welsh.

The alphabet, honestly, wasn’t that hard. The pronunciations were a bit different (as Remus kindly sang in my head) but the alphabet just took a week or two. But writing statements, sentences? My mother had cleared out an hour in the afternoon for practising Welsh for the foreseeable future.

"Byddaf yn mynd i'r farchnad ddydd Sul,” Hope intoned, brown eyes patient in the face of my somewhat mangled pronunciation.

“Byddaf...yn mynd... i'r farchnad ddydd…” I looked up at her, helplessly, looking down at my messy handwriting.

“Sul,” she said, exhaling softly. "Amser... gymryd saib.” I slumped in relief. It was good of her to offer me a break, honestly. My hands were tired.

I slipped out of the kitchen chair and ran into the sofa, jumping onto the cushions with my knees. The whole indoor shoe thing was hard to get used to, at first, but its almost second nature now, even if I am still pretty particular on which shoes I wear inside the house and which shoes I wear outside. 

The couch was my most favourite thing ever. I could lay on it for hours, snuggling into the soft cushions.

Strong hands lifted me up slightly. My father sat down next to me, watching me fondly.

I smiled back, scooting closer, and he wrapped an arm around me. 

I liked being physically affectionate with them, to be honest. Human touch is something special, and being loved was novel. My old parents loved me, but they were both gone in a sense. My mother was six feet under and my father had been an ocean away, so I was trying to treasure all these small affections.

And now I was someone else, and they hadn’t even been born yet. I frowned slightly.

“Remus?” I looked up to see Lyall’s worried expression. “Are you feeling well, child?” I tilted my head up at him.

“I think so.” He didn’t seem comforted by my stunning response.

“Do you want to…talk about it?” The man grimaced slightly, and I stifled a giggle. He was just so awkward, honestly.

“Can we go somewhere?” He paused, waiting for me to go on.

“I want- I want to go somewhere and play with- I want friends.” I really, really did. I tried to convey how serious I was about this because as much as loved Hope and Lyall, they still expected me to be a child. I was happy to indulge them, but surely, friends were a good thing?

I had…reasons for asking for friends, complicated reasons that definitely didn’t involve playing tag with someone,  _ not at all_. Reincarnated mastermind here, nothing more, nothing to see here.

I want friends. 

I know they won’t be the same people as before, that my old friends were special. But I needed a support system outside the magical world, or at the least, outside Hogwarts. Remus seemed lonely, so the solution was to make friends. Sure, if they were muggle I’d never be able to reveal to them my furry problem, but certainly, the bruises and cuts could be explained as arthritis or some sort of rare genetic disease.

(Or, you know, not at all.)

So. Mission 1. Make friends.

But I couldn’t really do this without them letting me go and play with someone.

“We’ll think about taking a trip soon, okay?” Lyall gave me a soft smile, trying to hide the worry in his eyes. It didn’t work, but I could see why. My skin milk-white and blue-veined, and I looked small and fragile. Playing or even letting me out of their sight could mean I was in danger.

(They hadn't been able to protect me from Greyback, and they were afraid they would fail to protect me again, even if they were just protecting me from other children.)

“Okay.” I pressed closer to him, listening to his heartbeat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! Did you miss me? Because I missed all of you! I'm back guys!
> 
> (College. College stuff is not fun and I hate the SATs...anyway.)
> 
> So this chapter is really indicative of normal, normal life, because it really, really bugs me when self-inserts/OCs spend their veritable childhood doing nothing but studying or learning how to manipulate people. It, in my humble opinion, makes them super hard to relate to and I don't know, I can't sympathise with a Mary Sue, you know? And it's always super imbalanced and OP and it just bugs me. My whole idea for this story was "there is no such thing as a free lunch." Meaning, Remus/Sam wont be a prodigy, won't possess some unknown runic ability or manipulate people willy-nilly. 
> 
> They'll get where they are naturally, and Remus/Sam...Saremus? Saremus will have things they struggle with, things they can't accept. They'll get in trouble and they'll have late assignments and get grounded and be pretty normal. I'm not going to give them an OP childhood where they fight people. In fact, Saremus is actually weaker than canonical Remus because of their numerous health issues just waiting to pop up. 
> 
> I don't know. I think time skips are necessary but their childhood is important. So while we do eventually get to Hogwarts, I'm not going to jump over seven years. They've got things to do, things like being with family, running around, learning the family trade, getting yelled at- normal people things...
> 
> Okay, wow that was a very, very long rant and its not even directed at any of you, I just had to communicate the fact that Saremus is going to be relatable tm not because he's a sassy bitch (he will be that though) but because he has normal person problems, like getting sick for reasons beyond plot.


	7. treewalking

> ** "It is our choices ... that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." **
> 
> _ Albus Dumbledore, The Chamber of Secrets _

All thoughts of impending friendship and otherwise had to be put on hold because my third lunar change sent me to the hospital.

The lunar change, as a general note, is extremely draining. There was no real way to build up an immunity to the, well, horrifying transformation, but mental fortitude could be built up. Probably. Basically, I had to get my shit together or I’d kill myself before my seventh birthday.

_ But I digress.  _

So, the hospital visit was because I’d passed out after the transformation. Which makes sense, right, super draining magical transformation of pain, etc. 

But…I didn’t really wake up again. Not until the doctors forcibly, magically woke me up, via some odd spell.

It turns out that I wasn’t getting enough protein to sustain the monthly transitions.

Also, anaemia.

In my defence, I was very pale-skinned already, and I’d always had cold hands and feet. So I hadn’t really noticed anything abnormal.

In hindsight, maybe that was because I was straddling the line between anaemia and health in my past body as well. But then again, any passing out I’d done in the past was due to low blood pressure, not because my body literally couldn’t absorb iron.

The tests the doctors did, whatever they were, basically proved that I was going to be shrimpy for the rest of my life if things didn’t change.

So a new ritual started- I was to take three separate potions every single day. One before breakfast, one before lunch, and one before dinner. They would basically help my body process more nutrients. On the offside, they made me lethargic, so I was deeply unhappy about them in general.

Still, I didn’t protest. I drank them obediently even though tasted like wet socks roasted over a garbage pit, holding onto hope that one day they’d be reduced in frequency.

My poor health meant no potential friends, no playing outside, no nothing. No cooking, only bedrest as my body began to process the influx of nutrients.

_ I was bored out of my fucking mind. _

> * * *

Day three of near-bed rest I broke down and begged my father for a notebook. He gave me an leather notebook with a leather strap that closed and an ink bottle. My mother, pinching her nose in annoyance, brought me a ballpoint pen. You can see which writing implement I used.

The thing is, I’d never forgotten my original idea to write down my future plans. Except now I was paranoid that someday my mother (or father, _who fucking knew?)_ would get curious about what their cute son was writing only to see war plans.

A simple _accio_ would  _literally ruin everything. _

But there was nothing I could do, so I just slept with the notebook tucked into the side of my bed. It wasn’t the most solid security but it was the best I could do.

I also made my handwriting super fucking messy, to the point where I could barely decipher it.

So. 

Notebook.

What to write?

I started with Hogwarts, the events that were supposed to happen, to my knowledge. I worried that some of it was more fanon than canon, but my memory was a little mush, so there was nothing I could do on that front.

There was Dumbledore’s invitation to Hogwarts, the friendship with James Potter and Sirius Black, as well as Peter Pettigrew. Maybe friendship with Lily, who was parcelled with Snape, who literally hated Remus’s guts after the incident in the fifth year.

(Note to self- don’t let that event happen.)

There was the _animagus_ thing, the Marauders' map, the Potter Cloak, the Whomping Willow, the Shrieking Shack, fucking Hogsmeade, and...

_ And the War. _

It started pretty much after schooling, right? Remus might’ve been a spy for Dumbledore to the werewolves, to fucking Greyback _(and didn’t that make me nauseous?)_ or in general, an order member.

Right! The Order of the Phoenix. Snape wasn’t originally a member, but the Weasleys were, in association to the Prewetts! Gideon and Fabian, right? Right. He would turn after Trelawney made the prophecy and he told old Voldy, and he realised he’d doomed Lily.

Lily died on Halloween after James, trying to protect her beloved, darling son, at about twenty or twenty-one. They’re betrayed by the rat, Sirius goes chasing after him, ends up getting framed for revealing their location. Peter slinks off to the Weasleys, the Death Eaters go to Azkaban or bribe their way out, and Remus Lupin is all alone.

Harry Potter is shuffled off to his muggle relatives, Remus fucking suffers, Sirius suffers, Peter lives the fucking dream, and then Remus makes an entrance in the third year.

I stopped at this point because my small fingers were cramping, unused to the amount of writing I was doing, and besides, my head hurt a little. I leaned back into my bed and thought about my rather morbid future.

I mean, I suppose it wasn’t…terrrible. Destitution and poverty were probably character building, right?

Yeah…no way in hell.

My first concern was obviously my family. What the hell happened to Lyall and Hope? I was pretty sure Hope had died before canon events but was that preventable? Was that set in stone? No clue, but I hoped it wasn't. If Hope and Lyall were alive during the war, I’d probably pull a very Hermione Granger-esque measure and send them to the states or the first African country I could find. Somewhere out of the way, alive even if they never remembered who I was.

My second concern was money, and in relation, the idea that I’d be near destitute because the idiot wizards wouldn’t hire me. 

To that I say, fuck you, wizards! The inbreeding has done a real number on you. Remus Lupin was a goddamn gift, and I was offended on both our behalf’s.

The obvious solution to my money issue was to be equally adept in all things muggle. I needed a degree or at least a record of education until my departure for Hogwarts. After I graduated, I could maybe take an exam to see where I was in terms of muggle education, or I could bring my remote muggle homework to the school and such. If I could maybe build up a rapport with a house-elf, they could deliver my homework to the school or college of my choice. And that way, I would belong to both worlds, so when shit hit the fan, I could run off to the muggle world and find employment there.

It seemed like a somewhat viable plan. After all, I was a muggle, having lived twenty-five years without magic.

My parents could pretend I was being tutored at home. Or I could forge a degree, but that seemed like a lot of work, even if forgery was inherently easier in the sixties, especially with magic.

I rubbed my face with my hands. Too much fucking work ahead of me. I had to convince my parents to let me go to school, but I probably had to stop falling asleep mid-conversation for them to even consider it. 

_ Sigh. _

* * *

My first bout of accidental magic (or the first time I witnessed my magic acting up, I knew I was a wizard already, werewolves are always wizards, the rest just die) was when I accidentally blew up a tree.

I’d snuck out of my room, desperate to do something, only for my parents to run out of the house in alarm at the sound of my massive explosion. 

My parents found me covered in ash. And grime, surrounding the dulled pit where a tree used to stand. My father gave me a severe look while my mother fussed over me.

So it wasn’t really intentional, that’s for sure, but the circumstances were certainly dumb enough that I was never ever going to reveal why the tree had blown up.

Any Naruto fan knows what tree-walking is, okay? And I figured if I was so magical, why couldn’t I tree-walk too? Surely, it would help me control my magic.

_Spoiled alert: Chakra and magic are not the same._

I had no clue what chakra felt like, to be honest, but all I knew was that magic didn’t work the same way. Chakra settled in the stomach, as far as I could remember, a mixture of mental intent and physical energy (ATP?), and it was blue. 

Magic was a bit like blood, as in…it seemed to flow in its own system. Imagine a third system, beyond the circulatory system and the lymphatic system. I certainly couldn’t pull it anywhere. It was just…there.

I don’t exactly know how I blew up the tree, but chakra precision exercises were useless, which meant I was on my own in terms of playing with my magic.

_Wandless magic sucked ass._

I wanted to try anyway.

See, I want to pretend this was all some grand plan of mine to become magically powerful, which, sure, sounds fun, but really? 

Magic is fun! And that’s all the excuse I had.

“Remus! Addo i beidio â gwneud hynny eto, roedd hynny'n beryglus!” My mom wiped the ash off my face with her handkerchief, basically dragging me to the side of the house for a hosedown.”Lyall! Dywedwch wrtho am beidio â'i wneud eto!” My mother was incredibly uspet, probably because my knees were trembling. I wasn’t exactly scared of the explosion, but it was a big shock for my young body.

“Sweetheart, Remus is magic. He’s not going to stop, he is a child. It’s a part of himself that he is curious to explore.” My mother turned on the hose and I shrieked as the cold water hit me.

"Felly, rydych chi'n dweud wrtho am chwythu ei hun i fyny?” My mother snarled, and my father sighed. He twisted his wand and dried my drenched self.

“Hope, darling, I am not telling him to blow himself up, I’m suggesting we find a different outlet for his magic.” 

This made my mother stop ranting for a second.

And then she started screaming obscenities at my father, which was completely unexpected.

I couldn’t even make what she was saying, it was so incoherent.

My father, iceman and probably the most put-together man I’d ever seen, visibly winced at this. My mother seemed to know a lot of Welsh curse words.

He politely dragged my mother out of my earshot as they went to have an adult discussion. I went back inside to the kitchen, a little shakily, managing to shove a cookie up to my mouth and swallowing it down right as my father and mother entered.

My mother was still visibly fuming. 

“Your mother,” my father begins, "is concerned that with your current health, magical exhaustion is the last thing we should worry about. But you’re about the age to begin some training, and your magic is probably too volatile to be suppressed.”

I pointedly did not mention that I, for lack of a better word, had made my magic spontaneously combust the tree on purpose. I also didn’t mention that my magic never acted up before, so it was less my magic being volatile and me being an honest to god little shit.

“So?” I asked, head tilted. Was I getting training or not? The idea of actually knowing my way around magic was interesting, and having someone as talented as Lyall would certainly be beneficial.

“So, we’ve decided you will practice for one hour with me every other day.” I bounced up, excited. My father held out his hand, flat, and I stopped.

“The condition is that you, firstly, try your best to not use magic any other time, and secondly, that you go to the local muggle primary school. We figured school would allow you to make friends as well.” I blinked, a little surprised.

I didn’t know what face I was making, but parents let me think in a somewhat charged silence.

Could…could life actually be working in _my favour_ for once? A huge smile spread on my face.

“You mean…I can do magic and go to school?” My father nodded, warily. I jumped up, fist in the air.

“Hell yeah!” My mother choked, face turning a little red.

“Remus, peidiwch â defnyddio iaith fudr!” I paid her no mind, too excited. I was getting out of the house! I was going to interact with other people! My long term plan might actually work!

I, with all the excitement of a four-year-old, cheered exuberantly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Remus! Promise not to do that again, that was dangerous!” 
> 
> “Lyall! Tell him not to do it again!”
> 
> “So you’re telling him to blow himself up?”
> 
> “Remus, don’t use foul language!”
> 
> This chapter is also known as: The last filler chapter before Remus makes muggle friends and gets a wand.


	8. wand-charming

> **“Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember...I think we must expect great things from you, Mr. Potter... After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things — terrible, yes, but great.”**
> 
> _Garrick Olivander, The Philosopher's Stone_

The night before we were set to visit Diagon Alley, I struggled to fall asleep. It was a mixture of excitement, dread, and plain old misery.

I wasn’t doing so hot.

See, for the duration of my new life, I had accepted many things. Mostly, I accepted through blaring denial, but still. Acceptance. I am a boy. (Screech.) I am a werewolf. (Screech.) I am destined for a shitty life full of violence and literally no bath bombs. (The biggest screech.)

But even if I was regularly put in painful situations (ie lunar transformations) or daily discomforts (health potions galore), a part of me refused to accept that all of this was real. Part of me wondered when I would wake up in my bed, or in the hospital, or in the asylum. Part of me wondered if this was a mass mental construct and I was laying in a coma while my family and friends cried over me. I wondered when they would pull the plug and all of this would fade, and I’d die for real.

I was used to doubting my sanity, but never on _this scale._

But some part of me wanted it to be real. Wanted my presence to make a change, wanted to be alive and real even if I wasn’t really whole, even if I was certifiably mad on the inside, I just wanted…I just wanted to play my part with relish. I wanted things to be simple.

So why was I dreading Diagon Alley? Because that part of me would finally realise that magic, that this world was real in all it’s ugly glory, and I would somewhat be able to trust my head, but then all the heartache I’d been shoving down would tear open like a gaping wound again. I’d have to mourn all my friends and family and the injustice and the exhaustion of it all. I’d have to square up and work through my issues and that…that would be hard.

Like, if I accepted wholeheartedly that this was real, then. 

Then I’d have to accept other things.

Like the fact that one day I’d probably have to kill.

Or the fact that my new parents would someday die.

Or the fact that my old life was entirely gone.

Or that if I couldn’t change anything, I would die. Again. 

(The last part provoked mixed feelings within me, but anyway.)

And I don’t know.

I was just bone-achingly lonely sometimes, and my request for friends wasn’t just an attempt to alleviate boredom, but really, I just wanted someone to talk to even if I’d never be able to tell them my biggest secret of all.

And I loved Hope and Lyall, and it was easy to love them. They were unlike my previous parents but that just made it easier, because I had two sets and I loved both but-

There was never a point in my life where I’d be able to call them up and be like, “remember that time I was a grown woman who was assaulted who wound up in the body of your original son by accident?”

That would never be a thing, not at all. There would always be a distance, always be secrets.

It was odd. I’d never kept something big from my parents before. 

But for the rest of this life, I’d have to keep my mouth shut on the whole idea of reincarnation/transmigration unless I wanted to end up in a psych ward.

“Troublesome,” I whispered, before laughing softly. 

It sounds like a sob.

**☾**   
  


The thing about enhanced senses it the fact they’re functionally useless in most situations. My enhanced senses were no different because all they did for me was give me crippling migraines and varied bouts of nausea.

My new body was literally so fragile, and it was kind of annoying (and concerning).

But I was stuck with it, so I decided I would actually develop my senses. It seemed wasteful to not use them, and surely they would only be advantageous later on, what with the fighting and the wars.

The major hiccup in this was the whole part where I had no idea what I was doing, but hey. That’s kind of my default mode anyway.

I recognised early on that smell depended on how much I could process and how much I could distinguish between the scents. The first part involved dealing with the constant stimulation I’d have to face in crowds and the like, and the second focused on finding the actual important smells I’d need to track someone.

In a way, the fact that we lived in such an isolated space worked out for me. It took a little while, but the background scents dulled enough that I could parse through the information I wanted, like how my parents smelled.

Don’t look at me like that! It’s weird but it’s important.

My mother, I found, smells like dirt from the garden, kitchen herbs, blood (from cutting herself with a knife), a little bit of perfume, and then what I liked to call our family scent.

Every human has a base scent, the smell of carbon and oxygen and numerous bodily processes at once, but then there’s the scent of all the people you regularly associate with. Associate is a generous word because my mother smelled like my father (for, ahem. Obvious reasons.) and like myself (because I was a momma’s boy regardless of which life I was living).

My father, if you’re curious, smells like ink, dusty books, what I think might be magic, and the smell of crowds and rich mahogany (the ministry?). Oh, and us. 

I’ve been practising tracking them, just for fun, but I was also playing this fun game called “let's smell everything!” And it was super weird, and at times disturbing, but my idea behind this was- if I got used to how everything smelled, then I’d know when something smelled weird. Magic is great, but most wizards are stupid, so how cool would it be if I could just scent dark magic from a mile away and run? 

So cool. It would be so, so cool, don’t even deny it.

But I regretted all of this as soon as we flooed into Diagon Alley.

It was, hands down, one of the worst experiences in my life, ever.

It was terrible for me, one Remus Lupin, and my father, who was rushing through the crowd of people because I was sobbing into his shoulder, bawling in pain. He was alarmed, I was alarmed, the crowd of shoppers might’ve been concerned (I’ve no clue, really. This was a society where beheading your house-elves was a normal thing to do).

The thing about living alone is that I regularly interact with two people who I’m extremely comfortable with. Throwing me into a crowd of magic-wielding maniacs who manned insane stores with magic of all different scents and smells means that I was overwhelmed, so overwhelmed that you could say we’d crossed the border for overwhelmed a while back and were now solidly in the nation of being terrified.

I don’t know how to describe it, because it’s not really a mundane sort of experience, but it’s a bit like entering a candle shop, except half the smells are odorous and sharp and magnified thousandfold.

The smells twist up under my nose, hurting my head and my nose, and I whimper, nearly in tears as the sounds overwhelm me.

_It’s too much._

I was sobbing in his arms by the time we entered Ollivanders, and I could tell he was silently freaking out by how tense his shoulders were. But I couldn’t calm down, couldn’t even focus on the fact that I was here, in the Diagon Alley, buying a real, real wand that would make me capable of extraordinary spells. It didn’t matter because everything hurt and my eyes hurt from scrunching so tightly but I couldn’t-

_could not_

_filter-_

_pain-_

_I couldn’t breathe-_

My father pressed closer, and I heard the sound of a bell (the type that announces the fact that you’ve entered a shop), ring, and it clanged around in my head, vibrating faster and harder-

and my father smelled like _ink and dusty old books but there was also the smell of someone else’s sweat and the robemaker’s fabrics and the scent of ink and wooden brooms and above all-_

_wands, wands everywhere, chestnut and cherry wood and unicorn hairs and phoenix feathers and dragon scales and-_

_lights and magic and spells and magicmagicmagic untouched magicmagicmagical strings-_

It was a mercy when someone finally knocked me out, the sharp scent of a spell hitting me before everything went dark.

I woke up with a gasp, face sticky from the tears. My father was sitting on a chair, and my head was pillowed on his lap. His glasses were precariously perched on his nose, his eyes worried.

“Remus. Are you…” he trailed off, unsure as to ask me if I was better or not, or to ask me what happened.

I saw something (someone?) moving on the side, and I tilted my head to see a blonde-haired man watch me carefully. He was middle-aged, lean and lithe, and the most uncomfortable part was his silvery-white eyes that observed me with piercing clarity.

You’d expect someone with white eyes to be a little off-balance. You don’t expect them to stare at you like that. I curled closer to my father, afraid of what the man would notice.

_How many secrets can a person carry? Werewolf, female, adult, dead-_

“Remus?” My father asked once more. I turned back to him, trying to plaster a smile on my face. I probably looked ghastly, but I had to try.

“I’m fine, dad.” This only deepened his frown, stress lines accentuated. He gently brushed my hair off my face, but I flinched a little, and he pulled back.

I felt bad, but all smells, all sounds…even the muffled sounds from outside the shop grated on my senses.

“Overstimulation, wasn’t it?” The blonde man said, and I stiffened again. I’d forgotten he was there.

How strange. It wasn’t like me to just…forget about a person. My muddled mind could barely parse through all the noises in my head. I curled up into myself, flinching as my fingernails scraped against my skin.

“…yes.” I finally said, voice small. Everything still hurt and my ears rang, but I managed to sit upright with my father’s assistance. I swayed a bit, but my father somehow steadies me with minimal touching.

“It happens.” The man turned to father, silvery eyes strangely calm. “You might want to buy him earplugs and a mask to filter everything out until he gets used to it all. My father frowned but nodded.

“I’ll buy him one.” He turns to me a little. “Are you feeling well enough? We can come back later…”

My gut instinct was to say no, because I was still flinching, and a very large part of me wanted to cry into my mother’s apron and never leave the house again, but...

I wasn’t quite sure I could do it again, coming back here. I knew that things would get better eventually, but still. I would be afraid of crowds for a while, so while I was here….

“I’m…fine. I’m okay. We can get my wand. We’ve come this far.” I tried to reassure my father, which only made him frown harder, but he eventually conceded with a sigh.

He turned to the man.

“Well, Garrick?” The man smiled vacantly before he snapped his fingers. Measuring tapes flew out of his pockets and my father helped me stand up. I stepped closer to the man, wondering why they even needed to measure me. 

I didn’t have the energy to question it though, so I let the tapes swirl around my wrists and along my shoulders and down to my hips as the man made vaguely approving noises, silvery-white eyes looking past me as he murmured things to himself.

My muddled brain didn’t think to ask him questions when he asked for my wand hand- I just stared at him woozily. I didn’t want to explain the mess that was my head, how being right-handed in my last life and left-handed in this one made my ability to do anything difficult. A mental mess.

“Ambidextrous, then?” I nodded, relieved, and stuck out my left hand anyway. Might as well throw people off.

He placed a wand in my hand, a cherry one with unicorn hair. I’d barely flicked it when he snapped it away, depositing a darker hickory one with a phoenix feather. I swished this one and he grabbed it, placing it away, giving me a chestnut wand with demiguise hair, and so on, so forth.

Round and round we went, trying to find a wand. as my father sat back and watched as we went through the wands. Garrick was somehow both placid and manic in his attempts to pair me off, and as we went through wands of all sizes and compositions, he took notes on a small pad before pausing, rushing to the bag of the store.

I stood there, sweating. I was more than a little scared. Remus was a wizard, yes, but there was no guarantee I would be. Logically, only a wizard could be a werewolf, but my mind was muddled and panicked, and I wondered if I’d ruin the plot by being a goddamn squib instead of the wizard Remus was supposed to be.

Garrick eventually brought a dusty old box, and he picked out the wand inside. It was a light-coloured wood, and he gently placed it in my hand.

“Alder wood, dragon heartstring, 9 inches.” He sounded almost perturbed by it, but as I swished it, the entire room lit up. I gasped and stared at the tiny wand.

It was hard to describe the way I felt right then. It was a bit like trekking through the desert, having lost all hope, and then finding a fucking Starbucks with air conditioning and frappuccinos.

_I was exhilarated._

My father looked happy about this until he turned to Garrick, who stared at me. 

“What is it?” I clutched my wand tight, afraid that there was something wrong with, or maybe…something wrong with me.

“The wand,” Garrick said, slowly, “is out of projected proportion, and yet it works.” I didn’t really understand.

“I’m small, so the wand is too? Right?” I asked, voice childishly confused. I wasn’t even trying to be a kid, because I was genuinely boggled. He was saying that it was small for me, or that it would be small for me as an adult.

“It might be that you’re buying it so early.” Garrick paused in contemplation, eyeing me carefully before turning to my father. “If it causes problems, bring it back to me for a check-up. By the time he gets to Hogwarts, he might’ve outgrown it, so pay me a visit then.” My father agreed, and then the conversation drifted off to other things as I slumped into the cushioned chair again, clutching my wand in my soft, small hands.

A wand. 

An actual, real wand that was _mine._

I-

I was incredibly in awe because you have to understand, magic is entirely new to me. How many times in the past had I wondered what I would do with magic, what would I do if I could go to Hogwarts. How much times I’d use _accio_ due to my laziness, how I’d jinx any bullies I’d come upon, how I’d charm my robes to glitter and shine. I’d imagined using magic a thousand times, in my fantasies, doing fancy spells, fighting evil with all my heart, but now-

Now I would actually be able to. And I sort of wanted to tear up, because look! Look at all the things I could learn to do, look how much amazing things I could become capable off.

I was astonished and stunned and overwhelmingly happy, and in my tired, tired head, I imagined doing the _nox_ spell and blocking out all the light and noise and simply falling asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys thought SaRemus was doing well? Aahahhaha  
> they really, really aren't.
> 
> More about the wand next time!
> 
> (Maybe look up what alder wood represents...)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [in the blink of an eye](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28560600) by [Sunnystar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunnystar/pseuds/Sunnystar)




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